ACCOMMODATING. 339 



I said. ''Certainly," he answered. "But," I con- 

 tinued, "don't people shut up their houses. when they 

 go away to be gone a week or two ?" " No ; they 

 leave 'em open a purpose for anybody that might 

 come along and want to stop. They expect every- 

 body to go in and help themselves. That's the way 

 we do in the woods. Have to be accommodating, you 

 know." I thought this was being accommodating with 

 a vengeance. To ransack a man's apartments, rummage 

 his cupboard, dirty up his floor, and sleep in the only 

 bed in the house, certainly is being accommodated. 



Before we started, the strange guide gave a speci- . 

 men of his rifle-shooting. He wished to discharge his 

 gun, and, looking around for some object at which to 

 fire, noticed a robin sitting on the limb of a dry hem- 

 lock, full a hundred yards distant, I should judge. At 

 all events, it was so far off that the bird did not look 

 larger than a sparrow. I watched the bird when the 

 rifle cracked, and saw the bark fly directly beneath him. 

 The frightened, bewildered, or stunned creature made 

 T two or three wild gyrations, and then dropped, as if 

 wounded, in the bushes. 



We had resolved to pitch our camp for the night on 

 Tupper's Lake, but as we proceeded down the river, 



